Facebook Messenger: 5 Things To Know

Facebook will soon require users to download Messenger to chat with friends. Here's the lowdown on important privacy settings and features.

Facebook Privacy: 10 Settings To Check

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If you use Facebook's mobile app to chat with friends, you'll need to download Messenger soon to retain that capability.

Facebook started prompting users both in-app and via email this week to download Messenger, which it said is faster than the messaging function currently baked into the main app. Once you see the notifications, you'll have one week to download the app, Facebook said.

"In the next few days, we're continuing to notify more people that if they want to send and receive Facebook messages, they'll need to download the Messenger app," Facebook said in a statement on Monday. "As we've said, our goal is to focus development efforts on making Messenger the best mobile messaging experience possible and avoid the confusion of having separate Facebook mobile messaging experiences."

While managing two separate apps may seem cumbersome, Facebook promises they will integrate seamlessly, comparing it to switching between a friend's profile page and your news feed.

Since Facebook has made Messenger mandatory to all users who want to chat with friends, it's time to familiarize yourself with the app. Here's a look at the important settings plus details about its features.

1. How to mute notifications If you don't want to receive notifications from all or individual friends for a specific time period, such as overnight or an hour during the day, Facebook gives you that option.

To mute messages from a specific friend, find that conversation under the Recent tab. Tap the Info button, then tap Mute. You have three options for muting the conversation's notifications: You can mute it for 1 hour, until 8:00 a.m., or until you turn it back on.

You can also mute notifications from everyone. To access this option, navigate to Messenger's settings, tap Notifications, and choose to turn them off for one hour or until 8:00 a.m. You cannot mute all notifications indefinitely.

2. How to place a phone call In addition to chat, Messenger lets you place free calls -- including international ones -- over WiFi. Placing calls through Messenger may use your existing data plan.

Placing a call is simple: Search for the person you want to call, then tap the phone icon. If the icon is blue, your friend is reachable. If the icon is grey, they do not accept calls -- likely because they don't have a phone number listed on Facebook or their phone does not support calls over WiFi.

When you attempt to place a call, Facebook may prompt you to allow Facebook to access your device's microphone. Turn this option on for Facebook in your device's settings.

3. How to disable location tags Facebook tags your location in messages by default. Your friends can see this in two places: your location will display below your message, and on a map, which friends can access by tapping your message.

To turn off this feature, tap the arrow button or the small circle next to your text box, which turns it from blue (on) to gray (off). You can also turn off your location setting for Messenger in the settings section of your device.

4. How to delete imported contacts After you download Messenger, Facebook will ask if you want to import and sync your contacts. If you import contacts, Facebook will store them on its servers where it may be used to help others search for or connect with people or to generate suggestions for you to connect with others, it said. It may also import information from your contact list and message folders, too.

If you want to delete contacts you imported to Messenger, go to the app's Settings page and tap Synced Contacts > Learn More. This page will show you the contacts that were imported to Messenger and let you delete them at the bottom. Even if you delete contacts, note that your phone book will be imported again if you have continuous syncing turned on. You can turn this off in your Messenger settings.

5. How to save a picture and send a video To save a photo that a friend sends you -- or to save one that you previously sent a friend -- find the picture in your conversation, tap to open it, then tap the button with an arrow to save it. You can also tap and hold the image to bring up saving options.

To record a video for a friend, first tap the camera icon. When you're ready to record, tap and hold down the Send button. Videos can last up to 15 seconds.

Kristin Burnham currently serves as InformationWeek.com's Senior Editor, covering social media, social business, IT leadership and IT careers. Prior to joining InformationWeek in July 2013, she served in a number of roles at CIO magazine and CIO.com, most recently as senior ... View Full Bio

This is an interesting strategy by Facebook. Many users only really like Facebook's messaging capability, which means that the features of the main site are staying in the original app, while private chats are directed to Messenger.

This means many people will simply use Messenger and that's it. I don't get the business case for doing that, but then again I've been impressed with some of the deicsions Facebook has made to take risks and innovate.

Interesting point, I have wondered about this business model ever since Facebook announced that it would be separating messenger into a different app. It seems like this decision only adds complications for the user and would create a negative impact by taking the user far from Facebook's main features.

However, Facebook did buy Whatsapp for $19 billion, and a few overseas social media competitors to Facebook, seem closer to Viber's model rather than, Facebook's model. It could be that Facebook defines social media and messenger (messages, voice and video) as two different sectors.

If signal strength is weak, then data packets do get dropped and bandwidth is downgraded. I would imagine that a sentence containing ten words would require the same amount of data communication from both the main app and messenger, but yes, if a user is switching back and forth between messaging and the "home tab" -- it creates extra bandwidth requirements.

I was wondering about the blue phone icon that sometimes turns gray in the facebook messenger app. If the icon is blue I know that person can be called, but why does it go from blue to grey? Like it will be blue and then all of a sudden it will be grey and then a little later it turns blue again. Does this mean the person is talking on their phone and they cant accept calls until they get off the phone? Does the icon change back to blue after they get off the phone?

The use of social media for a host of business purposes is rising. Indeed, social is quickly moving from cutting edge to business basic. Organizations that have so far ignored social - either because they thought it was a passing fad or just didnít have the resources to properly evaluate potential use cases and products - must start giving it serious consideration.

Social media is critical in the age of digital business. How can IT help? First, work with the marketing team to set up social networking programs on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, at minimum. Then work to put social media sentiment analytics in place to measure success.